Sweden ranked Top 10 on Talent Attractiveness

Western Europe is the leading hub for the world’s talent, outperforming other regions in attracting, developing and retaining highly skilled employees.

This is according to the recently released IMD World Talent Ranking 2018 in which Western European nations fill nine of the top 10 places.

The annual survey from the IMD business school – which has campuses in Switzerland and Singapore – assesses the performance of 63 economies across three key categories: 1) Investment and Development, 2) Appeal and 3) Readiness. Their place in the ranking is determined by success in different talent-related areas such as education, training, apprenticeships, language skills, quality of life, remuneration and tax rates.

Switzerland tops the table, as it has done in each of the previous four editions. Despite the country’s high living costs, Switzerland comes first in two of the three key categories – Appeal and Readiness – and fourth in Investment and Development.

Nordic countries occupy the other two places on the global talent podium, with Denmark in second and Norway in third, climbing four places from the previous year. The “readiness” of Norway’s talent pool, together with improvements in public spending on education, has fuelled this year’s rise.

Finland and Sweden are in seventh and eighth place, while Iceland, in 16th, is the only Nordic nation outside of the top 10.

Eastern European countries fared less well with Estonia leading the charge in 28th position, followed by Slovakia and Latvia. Other Eastern European nations occupied the lower half of the table.

Canada is the only non-European nation to make the top 10, surging five places to reach sixth position due to improvements in the quality of its talent pool. Across the border, the US improved in all three categories to climb four places to 12th.

Source; WEF